


Liar, Liar

by SmilinStar



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-23
Updated: 2014-02-23
Packaged: 2018-01-13 12:33:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1226458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmilinStar/pseuds/SmilinStar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Of all the people to get caught by, Simmons hadn’t even been a fleeting consideration.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Liar, Liar

Of all the people to get caught by, Simmons hadn’t even been a fleeting consideration. That of course may have had something to do with the fact that he hadn’t expected them to get caught, full stop. His middle name was stealthy, and Poker Face was never a more apt description for May.

Maybe he had become a little too comfortable with whatever the two of them had been doing for the last few months, and had got just a little bit careless. Or maybe it had a lot more to do with the events of the past 24 hours than he cared to admit. Whichever it was, it didn’t matter. It was 2am; he was hungry and restless, and just needed to get out.

Though the team had managed to come away from their mission physically unscathed, it could have very easily turned into a nightmare. What with Fitz being held at gunpoint in the middle of a busy town square in Bratislava, and the finger battling with the trigger belonging to none other than Agent Jemma Simmons, the consequences of them not coming out of it in one piece wasn’t worth thinking about. Both had been at the mercy of a telepathic, mind-controlling homicidal maniac, who had been running circles around them for the better half of the past week. They had finally managed to pin him down but not before Simmons had pulled that trigger. May had gotten to Fitz just in time, pushing him down and out of the way just as the bullet had grazed past, shattering the glass of the bakery behind them.

Physically unscathed they may have been, but Ward couldn’t shake the look on Simmon’s face from his mind.

He needed a drink. A strong one.

Walking out of May’s hotel room, hands still doing up his shirt buttons, it wasn’t until he looked up that he saw that same haunted face. It seemed he couldn’t escape her.

Her eyes flitted from him to the door and then back again, landing on the one button he’d missed.

“Simmons …” he started, not sure where he was going after that, but an overwhelming need to apologise seemed to be bubbling up out of nowhere. He didn’t really understand what he would be apologising for but the words “I’m sorry” were there on his lips, not that he ever had a chance to utter them.

She just waved both her hands in front of her, looked down at the ground beside him and muttered, “It’s none of my business,” before sidestepping him, and hurrying down the corridor.

It seemed his mouth wasn’t the only thing that he had lost control of as he ran after her, and spun her around by her elbow.

She wouldn’t look at him.

“Hey,” his voice was soft, and he spoke with a gentleness wholly foreign to him. His left hand still on her elbow, he stooped down a little to try and get her to look at him, “You ok?”

She didn’t answer.

He sighed, “Look Simmons, what happened today, I know it was scary and I can’t imagine what it felt like for you, and if we had had more time maybe we could have come up with a better plan that didn’t put-ˮ

“Fitz in the firing line. My firing line.”

“That wasn’t you. You know that wasn’t you.”

His hand slid up her arm to her cheek, gently turning her face towards him. Her eyes were red rimmed, and sunken, dark underneath her lower lashes; skin paler than normal if that was even possible.

“The main thing is that Fitz is ok, you’re ok, everyone’s ok. And we got him. We got the bastard.”

She swallowed, blinked away tears she hadn’t let fall, before stepping away from him, leaving his fingers trailing after her in mid air. He awkwardly retracted his arm, letting it drop to his side and then up again to clutch the back of his neck.

“You’re right. I’m fine. Everything’s completely fine.”

“You sure?”

Stupid really, when it was clear everything was not completely fine, but Simmon’s gave him a tremulous smile in a poor effort to make him believe so.

The air between them was thick with an awkward tension that had never been there before and he didn’t know what to make of it.

“Good.”

She said nothing else.

Turning away from him, she continued on down the hallway.

Self-preservation mandated that he just let her go, but there was still something hammering away through his thoughts that he couldn’t stifle.

So he called out after her, “And hey, about what you just saw-ˮ

She turned slightly on her side; face a blank slate, unreadable, “Like I said, it’s none of my business.”

This time he let her walk away.

*******

Not a whole lot changed. Not consciously, of course.

If he sneaked into May’s bedroom fewer times a week to never, he blamed it on him taking his SO responsibilities more seriously. Skye was behind on her training, nowhere near the skill level she needed to be at to be considered an able active field agent. And so he had taken to putting her through her paces – there would be no more slacking.

If May noticed anything different, she never mentioned it.

Coulson, was still Coulson.

And Fitzsimmons appeared to have got over their ordeal just fine. The engineer-biochemist double act were back to being their usual mile a minute processing, unintelligible, scientific gibberish speaking duo.

That was of course when they were Fitzsimmons, but as Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons, their own separate entities? Then it was a different story.

It seemed Bratislava had left a mark on them both.

It was a few weeks after the incident that Ward had caught Fitz pitifully punching the bag down in the training room. His gloves didn’t fit, his stance was all wrong, but the determination on his face, that, well that Ward could work with.

Stepping into the room, Fitz made no show of noticing him. Instead, he spoke quietly, his back turned to him, eyes still focussed on the punching bag in front of him and with a steel in his voice Ward had never heard before, “I’m fed up of having to be saved all the time.”

He said nothing. Instead he simply moved around the bag to hold it still as Fitz continued to punch away for the next hour.

The change in Simmons was a lot harder to notice. She was exceptional at hiding it away, but he noticed. He couldn’t help it. His eyes always seemed to be drawn to her in a room. He didn’t understand it, but he wasn’t going to dissect it to pieces. He was merely a concerned colleague. If she was off her game, then it affected the whole team. That was his reason, and he bullishly stuck to it.

She still smiled wide, and was excited by things he could never attempt to comprehend, but her smiles were off, and his inability to figure out just what was wrong with them was frustrating.

And maybe he was just reading into things that weren’t there, but he felt like she was avoiding him. She never stayed in a room with him alone, always had some excuse to rush off. Her usual chirpy greetings of “Good morning Agent Ward!” in her bubbly British accent, had disappeared altogether. She never looked him in the eye for more than three seconds (and he had counted), and she was spending an inordinate amount of time with Skye.

“If you stare at her any harder, I’m scared she’s going to combust.”

The whispered voice broke him out of his thoughts and he looked down beside him to find Skye staring at him, with one eyebrow slightly raised, and an almost quizzical half-smile on her face.

He cleared his throat, “What are you talking about?”

“Simmons. You’ve been staring at her for the past ten minutes.”

“Coulson asked us all to be here, so Fitzsimmons could demonstrate their new special toy to us, so that’s what I’m doing, I’m watching the demonstration,” he spoke in a low voice, breaking down his sentence as if talking to a child.

“Sure you are.”

“Is everything okay over there?” Coulson’s voice waded in from the front of the lab, as all sets of eyes turned to look at them both.

Ward gritted his teeth, muscle in his jaw twitching, “Fine sir, sorry for the interruption, please continue.”

Simmons’ caught his eye for a brief second, before she turned back to the holographic display screen and in that briefest of second he made a very sudden and determined decision.

They needed to talk.

*******

“Can we talk?”

He had waited until Fitz had left the lab to crash for the night. Simmons was still tidying up, the soft yawn she released, a sign that she would soon follow. He hadn’t meant to startle her, but the little gasp, and the hand at her chest said that he had.

He leant up against the glass door, and winced a “sorry.”

She shook her head, “It’s fine.”

Minutes later and neither said anything else.

This had been a very bad idea.

He continued to stand with his back against the door, arms folded across his chest, his posture the very definition of the phrase “I don’t  _really_  want to talk.” And she just kept pottering about under the guise of tidying up, when in fact she may have wiped over the same surface four times already.

Having had enough of the silence, Simmons was the first to break.

“So,” she said, drawing out that one syllable, “What did you want to talk to me about?”

“You’re avoiding me.”

Apparently, Ward had lost all control of the filter between his brain and mouth, because that most certainly had not been what he wanted to say. And he would vehemently deny it if he had to, but he was pretty sure a pink hue was tingeing his cheeks at that very moment.

She scoffed, and not very convincingly stuttered, “Of course I’m not, Fitz and I have just been incredibly busy.

“And in any case, we don’t really hang out, hang out. I mean we’re not really friends-ˮ

His jaw ticked. That shouldn’t have really surprised him. They were colleagues, of course. But surely jumping out of a plane for someone, at least warranted something akin to friendship. It was a punch to the gut he hadn’t expected.

“I mean yes we are friends,” she rambled on, “but not friends like Skye and I are friends, for example. I’m not avoiding you; we just haven’t had any reason to interact outside of work.

“I am sorry if you feel that way though, and I will make a concerted effort in the future to not avoid you,” she finished, ironically avoiding his gaze altogether, “but now, you must excuse me, I’m feeling quite exhausted and need to get some sleep.”

She made a move to leave, but he didn’t budge from his spot in front of the door.

“See that’s what I mean,” he said looking down at the top of her head, “You won’t stay in a room with me for more than five seconds and refuse to look me in the eye.”

She snapped her head up at him, eyes connecting determinedly with his own, “Five, four, three, two, one. There, happy?”

Her voice was hard, and the blaze in her eyes turned them liquid amber. Realisation hit him quite suddenly.

“You’re angry,” he blurted.

“No I’m not.”

“Yes you are,” he countered, stepping further into her personal space.

“No I am not,” she all but spat out, craning her neck back to meet his eyes.

Her cheeks were flushed and she let out small puffs of hot air as she fought to get control over her breathing. She was far too close for comfort, he could almost feel her chest brushing up against him with every rise and fall.

“Is this because of that night?”

That night, needed no clarification. Her widened eyes and slightly gaping mouth could attest to that.

He wasn’t sure how his brain had leapt to that conclusion, or why it was the only thing that made sense. He didn’t want to dwell on what that could possibly mean, and was therefore even more stunned when she responded with a “Yes.”

He had expected a denial, and a “You are reading far too much into this Agent Ward,” but a flat out ‘yes’?

She looked away from him, stepping back and taking all the heat with her. It hadn’t even been a split second, but something in the air around them changed, and when she looked back at him, the fire was gone, “Skye is a really good friend to me, and living with each other week on end, cooped up on a plane, that really isn’t all that big in the grand scheme of things, we have to be able to get on and be there for each other-ˮ

“I’m not sure I follow.”

She rolled her eyes, “For a smart man, you can be really dense. Skye likes you. Like really likes you.”

“Huh.”

“Huh. Huh? That’s all you can say. You’ve put me in such an awkward position. And now she’s going to hate me even more for spilling the beans. Oh this is just horrible.”

“Wait, Skye?”

“Yes, Skye.”

Part of him was sceptical. The conversation between them seemed to have done a U-turn somewhere along the way and he couldn’t help but feel Simmons had somehow managed to deflect it towards an entirely different destination. He would have been impressed, if he didn’t have the niggling thought that maybe there was some truth to what she was saying. Because some place deep down he had always suspected it, and maybe at first there might have been a spark of something between Skye and him – she was attractive, funny, smart – and he would be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about it, once or twice, but then he had begun to care about her in that oh so annoying little sister kind of way. His feelings weren’t romantic in the least.

He rubbed a hand across his face and muttered a “Shit.”

“Yes, as you’ve so delightfully put it, shit indeed.”

She moved away from him entirely, positioning herself back behind one of the counters, “You’re going to have to tell her about your relationship with Agent May.”

“Relationship? It’s not a relationship.”

“Oh.” Her cheeks flushed as she quickly caught on to his meaning. Biting her bottom lip, she looked away.

“Yeah.” And there was the awkwardness again.

“Either way you,” she cleared her throat, “you should probably talk to her because I know I said it wasn’t any of my business, and it really isn’t, but Skye is my friend-ˮ

“And I’m not.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that earlier,” she said hurriedly, her face a picture of distress for the offence or hurt she may have caused him with her previous ramblings.

He shrugged, the corner of his lip rising slightly, “Yeah, I know. But you’re right, I’ll uh, I’ll have to talk to her.”

“Yes. Good.”

“So you weren’t avoiding me for any other reason?” He couldn’t help it; there was something that wasn’t being said.

“Nope. That was it.”

He ignored the curl of disappointment unrolling in his belly with those words. Maybe he was reading into things that just weren’t there. At least they’d reset the counter to zero, and hopefully things between them could get back to normal now.

“Fine, well I’ll leave you to it. See you in the morning Simmons.”

“Night,” she said, a small smile gracing her lips.

Who would have thought Jemma Simmons, notorious for her inability lie, had just managed to do exactly that so brilliantly?

*******

It was three days later when Jemma realised that he had done what she’d asked of him. Well, only partially done what she’d asked of him.

She had been sat in her bed, casually flicking through the most recent edition of New Scientist on her tablet, when there was a very loud, and Skye-like, rap on her door.

“Come in,” she called out.

Skye let herself in, flung herself on to the bed beside her, bouncing once, twice, before coming to a stop. Leaning back on her hands, she turned her head dramatically in Jemma’s direction, and stared, rather pointedly.

“What’s the matter?”

“Oh nothing really. Just had a real interesting conversation with Ward is all.”

She tried to feign disinterest, but failed miserably, “Oh yes?”

“Yeah. Turns out he’s somehow got it into his head that I’ve been crushing on him.”

“What? No! Really? How ridiculous, can’t imagine what gave him that idea!”

Skye wasn’t falling for it, “More like who?”

Jemma finally looked up from her screen, a grimace on her face, “I’m sorry.”

“Uh huh, right,” Skye raised her eyebrows, “I’m not sure who was more embarrassed, me or him!”

“What do you mean?”

“I am so not interested in Ward. Yeah sure, maybe a while back I’d thought about it, but come on?! That man is the devil incarnate! Do you know how many freakin’ squats and push-ups he made me do this morning?! My thighs, I swear were burning from the inside out, but did he let me take a break? Oh no! Oh and lets not forget how ridiculously anal he is about protocol and rules, like jeez you can loosen up just a little! And he just looks so damn miserable all the time. There is nothing remotely charming or attractive about that man-”

“Oh that’s not true at all!” Jemma straightened up, interrupting Skye’s rant, “Anyone with eyes can see he’s attractive. I mean, he’s all chiselled jaw and well defined abdominal muscles and biceps, and he has really  _really_  nice hands … what? Why are you looking at me like that?”

The smug smile on Skye’s face only grew wider, “Jemma Simmons, you are so busted!”

“I mean objectively speaking. It’s just an objective observation,” she floundered, her cheeks turning redder by the second as she realised the trap she had just tumbled straight into.

“Jemma Simmons! You are not getting out of this so easily! You so have the hots for our Mr Special Agent!”

“I do not! I do not have the hots for or fancy him in any shape or form.”

Skye raised her eyebrow, staring the biochemist down with her “I call bullshit” look.

It was surprising how quickly Jemma backed down, “Oh alright, I may have the  _tiniest_  crush. He saved my life, by jumping out of a plane after me, it’s kind of hard not to. It’s nothing serious, and it’ll pass.”

She was so matter of fact about it, it was hard to tell if she truly believed it or was still trying to convince herself.

“And anyway,” she continued, “I’m not even his type. Not that that matters, since you know, it’s all just stupid and momentary.”

The grin on Skye’s face faded, because try as she might to sweep it all under the rug and dismiss what she’d just admitted, the waves of melancholy coming off of her friend were very much palpable and suggested there was some weight behind her admission.

“Who says you’re not his type?”

She allowed a humourless laugh, “Because his type is the strong, silent, mature, ass-kicking, kind of woman. The polar opposite of me.”

“Why would you say that?”

So obviously Ward hadn’t spoken to Skye about everything, and it seemed pointless to expose his fling with May now since it was clear Skye really didn’t have any feelings for her SO, and all Jemma had been doing was projecting her own feelings on to her friend.

“Never mind,” she whispered, shaking her head, “Like I said it’s stupid, I’m being stupid, and it’ll pass.”

“Jemma-”

“I think I’ll head back to the lab now, I’m sure Fitz could do with some help, even if he would never admit it.”

“Jemma-”

“Skye. Please don’t say anything.”

With a sigh, she nodded, “I won’t.”

“Thank you.”

*******

Try as she might to forget that conversation, and everything that came along with it, it seemed life had other ideas.

He just always seemed to be there. Every time she turned around. It could have possibly been an exaggeration but it was honestly what it felt like.

Later in the afternoon, following her mortifying conversation with Skye, Ward had managed to sneak up on her alone in the lab and had just dived head first in with, “So I spoke to Skye. Turns out you were wrong.”

“Well that’s a relief,” she said, before unnecessarily adding, “For you, of course.”

She wasn’t facing him, so she missed the small twitch of his lips that very nearly turned into a smile, “Of course.”

She felt him leave, and the slide of the glass doors behind him only confirmed it.

And so it went. Little snippets of conversation, small insignificant interactions, nothing that should have given her any hope, but somehow never helped her at all with her tiny, hardly there really, or worth worrying about, problem with one Agent Grant Ward.

*******

“So how’s the head?”

“Huh?” she looked up from the microscope, and lifted her safety goggles up from her face.

There he was, back leaning against the counter, arms folded across his chest, looking down at her with concern creasing his forehead.

He reached forward, pushed a curl away from her forehead, thumb brushing over the small bump along her hairline, before dropping his hand.

She was sure she was blushing as she reached up and pushed her hair out of her face, and stammered a reply, “It was nothing, really, just Fitz being his usual clumsy self. I’m fine.”

He nodded, “Good,” he pushed himself away, “Anyway, just to give you the heads up, wheels are up in ten.”

And with that, he was gone again.

********

“Can’t sleep?”

She may have jumped a little in her seat, but thankfully the dim lighting in the seating area had probably saved her some embarrassment.

He moved away from the kitchenette, two glasses of water in his hands. He took the sofa next to the armchair, reached across and handed her one.

“Thank you.”

She could feel his eyes on her, and felt compelled to answer his first question, “Nope, can’t sleep.”

“Nightmares?” he asked.

She shook her head, “No I stopped having those a while ago now.”

“You’re ok?”

She nodded, “I think I’m over what happened in Slovakia, I think I’ve accepted that there wasn’t anything I could have done. Honestly, I haven’t really thought about it in a long time.”

“That’s good.”

“Yes it is.”

“So why-”

“Why can’t I sleep? Nothing really all that exciting. I think I’ve just overworked myself and now can’t get my brain to switch off.”

“Well, uh, try not to stay out here all night, you’ll get cold.”

“I won’t, I’ll head back in a few minutes.”

“Okay,” he said, standing up, “Good night.”

“Night.”

It wasn’t until after he disappeared, she realised she never asked him how he had even known about the nightmares.

********

“More bullet holes?”

“Well, knife wound actually.”

Jemma rolled her eyes, even if he did have the good grace to look at least a little sheepish and sorry.

“How many times is this now?”

“That I’ve gotten stabbed?”

“No, that I’m having to stitch you back together again, be it bullets or knives or whatever else you keep getting yourself injured with!”

“I’ve lost count.”

She sighed, turning around and pulling on her gloves, “You know, I’m starting to think you’re doing this on purpose.”

“Maybe I am.”

Her head jerked up, to find him staring at her. Face too close, and with a smile on his face that was doing absolutely unacceptable things to her insides.

“You really ought to be more careful,” she somehow managed to say, her voice admirably steady.

“And where’s the fun in that,” he said.

And then he winked at her. Honest to god, winked.

*******

“Oh come on Ward!” Skye laughed, “They were all over you!”

The team were having a well deserved break following a successful mission to retrieve and safely dispose of an 0-8-4 that had been found in Saltillo, Mexico by a group of young locals. It turned out that it hadn’t particularly been anything that exciting or dangerous, but after months of doing this job, they had learnt never to underestimate the potential danger of anything unknown.

Anyway, since they had got the job done quicker than anyone had expected, Coulson had let the team out for a night on the town. They’d ended up at a bar, courtesy of Skye. She had tried to get them all out onto the dance floor to salsa, or cha cha or mambo or something, but they had all resolutely stayed in their seats. Although Fitz had very nearly wavered when Skye had fluttered her eyelashes in his direction, but he too had somehow managed to stay firm.

Skye had bemoaned their sense of adventure, but had promptly settled down when the drinks had started flowing.

“Yeah, they weren’t my type.”

“Gorgeous, blonde, exotic women, not your type? Just what is your type, Ward?”

Maybe it was the alcohol messing with her head, but when he answered Skye’s question with an “I don’t have a type,” he had been looking straight at her, and Jemma could have sworn he’d meant something else entirely.

*******

“Okay that’s it!”

She really could not handle it anymore.

She was being driven insane by the man for the past few weeks and though she may have tried to convince herself she was just reading into things, she needed to know once and for all.

“Skye told you, didn’t she?”

She had burst in on him in the middle of one of his training sessions. It took her all of five seconds to realise he was standing there shirtless and all sweaty and  _oh crap._

He raised an eyebrow, face impassive as he unwrapped the tape from his hands.

“Told me about what?”

She may have been blushing a horrendous shade of red, and having trouble keeping her eyes off his torso, but for goodness sake, she did have some dignity. Raising her eyes to his, she said, “You know exactly about what?!”

“I really haven’t got a clue.”

She swallowed. Maybe she really had got this all wrong. “You know what, never mind.”

She turned to leave but got no further than two steps, when a hand reached out and grabbing her by the elbow spun her back around.

She looked up to find him smiling down at her, and she just  _knew._

“So she did tell you. Oh that’s just great. Absolutely wonderful. Not mortifying at all!” She covered her face with both her hands.

“Hey,” she could hear the smile in his voice, “Jemma.” He pulled her hands down away from her face, and kept hold of them, and before she could even protest, his lips were on hers.

Her impending rant died there and then.

His one hand moved to grab her waist, pulling her in closer to him, his other cupped her cheek, fingers tangling in her hair as he deepened the kiss.

She got over her shock quick enough, her own hands coming up to clutch at his arms and keep herself from melting into the floor.

When he finally pulled away, lips still hovering close over hers, he whispered with a smile, “She told me.”

“Good thing she did too.”

 


End file.
